


Dancing in the Dark

by excentrykemuse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Minor Character Death, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 19:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16646459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excentrykemuse/pseuds/excentrykemuse
Summary: The song played on the radio that Ron had listened to…but he wasn’t here anymore.  Instead, Harry held out his hand, and Hermione found herself dancing in his arms.  AU HP7.





	Dancing in the Dark

The song played on the radio that Ron had listened to … not that he was here to listen any longer. It was strange, the man singing with a twang, Muggle, Hermione realized. She missed everything that was Muggle. Magic brought the war, it brought pain, it brought her parents being sent away.

She tried to hold in a tear at the thought of her parents, of her little sister.

Hermione could never even think her name. She hadn’t mentioned her to Ron or to Harry. How could she?

Sometimes Hermione wished that her sister’s ghost would haunt her like Sir Nicholas de Mimsey-Popington haunted Hogwarts, but then she would remember that her sister had been a Muggle like both of her parents, had never known magic when she died just after Hermione’s eighth birthday.

Losing herself in the song, a laugh escaped her lips. Harry twirled her back and forth, words unneeded. They had been such good friends for so long that words were unneeded. What were words anyway? They could be written in books, but books couldn’t possibly understand the pain she was in. She’d lost her sister, her parents, Ronald … there was nothing left but the pain … and Harry.

Viktor had looked handsome at the wedding, she remembered. Not that he was ever really handsome. Distinguished was the correct word. He’d been her first kiss, her first love, she supposed, in some ways. He’d danced with her at the Yule Ball, making her feel pretty and girly. Ron had danced with her once at the wedding. Now Harry was dancing with her, alone in this hidden tent, in the middle of winter.

Harry pulled her close and they rocked to the music, back and forth, back and forth. She felt safe in Harry’s arms, like nothing could hurt her. She wasn’t at all pretty right now. Her hair was bushy, and while her teeth hadn’t been quite as large as they had when she was younger, they still felt large. They always did when she was nervous.

She supposed they always would.

The song continued to play, broken up. They were so far from anyone, from anything. Just the two of them dancing together in the dark. She was in jeans and a flannel shirt. Harry was probably wearing the same. 

Her fingers brushed up against the back of Harry’s neck, but he didn’t seem to really mind. A smile tugged on her lips. Harry really couldn’t dance. Not really. He never had, not at the Yule Ball, and she hadn’t seen him dance at all at the wedding. Still he was twirling her, her hair flying, and they laughed quietly together, sharing a knowing smile.

Ron was probably warm at home at the Burrow. He had family waiting for him, a loving mother and father. Brothers who cared even if they teased him. A sister who, well, Hermione wasn’t quite certain what Ginny felt for Ron. A grudging kind of fondness, but still… and Ron wouldn’t even have to go back to Hogwarts this year as he supposedly at Spattergroit.

O’Children, lift up your voice…

The lyrics filtered through her mind. What did she have to rejoice about? She buried her head against Harry’s shoulder. 

It was strange but she was a little taller than her best friend, not that she minded at the moment. His strong arms still held her close, steadied her, kept her together. When she cried in the night, he was the one who would slip into her sleeping bag and hold her until her tears were spent. He was her rock, her comforter.

Ron left, again and again, but Harry remained.

“Do you love her?” she found herself whispering near his ear, finding that she really didn’t know the answer. She’d spent so many years listening to Ginny talk about how she loved Harry. Ginny had been convinced of it since she was a girl of eleven, maybe even before that even though she hadn’t really met Harry until she had come to Hogwarts, and even then she barely spent any time with him.

Was that love? Hermione didn’t really know.

She knew she didn’t love Ron. She fancied him—at least she thought she had. She held a fond exasperation for him and, well, she had been so jealous when she saw him with Lavender. He broke her heart then, just like the song said. One day, maybe, she would love him. Or maybe she wouldn’t. She didn’t know.

She felt so numb—but still Harry danced with her, rocking her side to side. It didn’t matter that he didn’t answer her question. Maybe he hadn’t heard her. Maybe he had.

Still, they danced in their tent, the song in the background. Then they were just standing there and looking at each other. She was just a girl, in jeans and a flannel shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail in the hopes that it would stay out of her face. Her nose brushed Harry’s, lightly, gently, not on purpose—or at least she didn’t think so.

Harry’s eyes shone green behind his glasses, those silly glasses that gave his face such character.

Trembling, she reached out and carefully plucked them off his nose. Hermione wasn’t really certain why she did it, she hadn’t really even consciously thought about it. She just wanted to see his eyes without the glasses.

His gaze became unfocused, but Harry didn’t stop her. Hands around her waist, he stood there, poised. Neither of them moved, the glasses still in her hand.

“I never noticed before,” she murmured, “but your eyes aren’t really green.”

A gasp escaped her lips as a hesitant kiss was pressed against her mouth, and she dropped the glasses on reflex. She heard them crack, but her mind had stopped as her hands instinctively came up around Harry, clutching him to her. The kiss was gentle, slow, almost chaste and absolutely perfect. There was so much promise in it and yet absolutely no expectations. Viktor hadn’t kissed her like this, not as if she were precious.

A sob escaped her throat and Harry’s lips immediately retreated, but she followed, running her hand into Harry’s wild mass of black half-curls, pulling him back. She kissed him once, gently, and then again and again.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured when she finally broke away, their foreheads resting to each other. “I just—my parents—and Elissa—“

Harry didn’t ask who Elissa was, he just held her close and let her cry, kissing away the tears. He held her close that night, and Hermione fell asleep sprawled across his chest, still dressed in her jeans and flannel shirt. The locket hung heavy around her neck, but she didn’t mind. Harry was holding her and keeping her safe… that’s all that mattered in the hushed gloom.

The days moved on much as they ever had, but now there was the holding of hands and soft kisses that offered comfort.

Harry was nearly silent when Ron returned. Hermione looked at the boy who had left differently. He was tall, lanky. When she had first met him he had a smudge on his nose, she recalled with some distance. He didn’t stir anything within her any longer, not even real anger. She half-heartedly hit him again and again, and didn’t quite believe it when Harry said he had destroyed the locket-horcrux.

It could be true, she supposed. Ron had to be brave to be in Gryffindor, and he had proved it many times. He followed Harry down the third floor corridor … down to the Chamber of Secrets … to the Department of Mysteries … had fought at the Battle of the Astronomy Tower …

But he was also a coward. She looked at him critically for the first time in years. He hung his head and shoulders slightly as if ready to take flight, his blue eyes looking about. He wasn’t deceitful, by any means, but sometimes when it came to it, he couldn’t be relied on. When Harry’s name had come out of the Goblet of Fire, he had turned his back on Harry and had later turned it on Hermione when he found out that Viktor was her date for the Yule Ball. He then abandoned her again when he went off with Lavender. He thought he was so clever, always making sure to snog in Lavender in places where she would walk in on them. She’d never told Harry about that cruelty, hadn’t been able to find the words—but she knew Lavender didn’t know her haunts, even though she could imagine her being that cruel if she thought that Hermione fancied her boyfriend. She was a bit territorial … but she didn’t know which classroom she went to when trying a particularly difficult charm so that the purebloods in Gryffindor wouldn’t see her struggling. Only Harry and Ron knew that … 

The thought still brought tears to her eyes. Harry had been the shoulder she cried on sixth year. It seemed so long ago… a lifetime in fact. 

Ron spoke about the Deluminator, and how he could hear her whispering his name.

She thought hard. She had whispered it, in anger once or twice, and then finally in despair when she let him go.

The thought struck her. Hermione had let Ronald go, he’d left her and she had decided not to wait any longer. She waited in fourth year for him to ask her to the ball, waited him to try to hold her hand after she asked him to the Slugclub Yule Party sixth year, waited while he snogged Lavender instead of kissing her… She was tired of waiting. A small voice that sounded like her mother whispered in her dreams that she was better than that, and she was beginning to believe it.

Hermione had always felt inferior to others around her; it was why she studied so hard, and it just became worse when she entered the wizarding world. She wasn’t a pureblood, she wasn’t even a half-blood, but Harry didn’t seem to care, not like Ron seemed to occasionally.

The Deluminator had brought Ron back to her, but it was far too late, even if the fictional ball of light went into his heart. The thought was nearly romantic, or might have been if she still didn’t want to slip into Harry’s sleeping bag at night to quietly cry and find reassurance. It wasn’t enough.

She hoped Ron realized that as he looked at her with hope.

It would just never be enough. He’d left her and Harry never had.

Sitting in the snow one afternoon, keeping lookout, she watched as Harry and Ron ambled toward a frozen river. The book of Beedle the Bard lay in her numb fingers as her eyes traveled over the breadth of Harry’s shoulders as he began to undress. First the flannel shirt, then the undershirt.

Ron sent a splash of water toward him and Harry squirmed away from it, the Quidditch toned muscles of his stomach flexing in the chilled air. He really was handsome. Not conventionally so, she realized, but definitely handsome. His lean body held a quiet strength, and a shiver passed through her that had nothing to do with the winter afternoon.

That night, without caring whether or not Ron found out, she slipped next to Harry and rested her head over his heart, letting the sound of it soothe her. Harry reached out for her and their fingers entwined. Although his hands felt like ice, she didn’t pull away. She was beginning to think that this is where she belonged, the thrum of the song they had danced to playing in her mind.

She barely spoke when they visited Xeno Lovegood, her mind turning to Luna. She’d been unkind to her when they had all been back at school, she thought self-deprecatingly. Hermione now understood what it was like to live quietly, inside her own mind, and she realized that perhaps this is what Luna had been doing. 

Her eyes caught Harry’s, and she squinted in order to see the dark blue ring that the green centre couldn’t help but dominate. Blue like the ocean on a clear day, like an evening sky, like hope. She could feel Ron’s eyes on her, but she didn’t look at him, instead keeping Harry’s gaze. Walking over toward him, she sat down on a strange, purple and gold couch. Her fingers reached out toward his and tangled together, and she smiled quietly to herself.

Mr. Lovegood was downstairs making tea for them. The sounds drifted up the stairs and she could hear him muttering to himself.

Palms pressed together, she felt safe. Harry was there. She felt so weak, so scared, so cut off from everything she knew and loved. All except for Harry—

Sometimes Hermione wondered if the war would ever be over, if she would ever have a life that was not filled with fear, if she would be able to find her parents who she had sent to Australia… Perhaps it would be better if they didn’t remember that they had a daughter who was a witch, if they didn’t remember they had once had another daughter, so perfect, so smart, who had been taken from them way too soon.

For the millionth time Hermione wondered if magic could have saved Elissa, but she was too afraid to ever really find out… and now there was a war to think about… and all she had grounding her to reality was the feel of Harry’s calloused hand which carefully held hers. In the dead of night when she was wearing the locket, she wondered if she was going slowly crazy. There was a fine line between insanity and genius, and she was uncommonly bright, grasped concepts that sometimes her teachers couldn’t quite follow… She knew she was tightly strung, it could take so little to send her over the edge…

“I’m here, Hermione,” Harry said quietly, and she looked up and caught his blue-green gaze.

She sighed in relief and rested her forehead against his shoulder, just breathing slowly and focusing on Harry’s free hand that was now gently rubbing her shoulder. When Mr. Lovegood finally returned, she caught the jealous look on Ron’s face, but it was soon washed away with the horrible tea they were forced to drink from politeness.

They barely escaped when the Snatchers came—Snatchers or Death Eaters, Hermione wasn’t really certain. It really didn’t matter.

Ron was yelling, but Hermione only half listened.

“How could you?” he screamed hatefully at Harry. “You know—you knew how I feel about her, how I’ve always felt about her.”

“I didn’t—not really—“ Harry defended, his face becoming heated. “Maybe at the wedding, a little—“

Ron shoved him angrily, and Harry stumbled backward.

“Ronald!” Hermione admonished as she stopped putting up the wards that would protect them.

“Oh, of course, take his side. You always do,” Ron grumbled, pushing Hermione away from him when she tried to put a hand on his arm. She fell backward and felt her head crack against a rock.

Ron, though, was still yelling angrily at Harry. “You saw what that horcrux said, my worst fear, and you’ve just gone and made it come true behind my back.”

Hermione blinked and looked up at the gray sky, her head throbbing. She felt a presence beside her and her head was lifted up carefully onto Harry’s lap.

“Ron, quiet! Can’t you see she’s hurt?” he hissed angrily. A wadded up jacket was put under her head, which seemed to staunch the blood.

“Merlin, Hermione—“ Ron gasped, but Hermione was looking up into Harry’s eyes, which were steady and full of worry. 

“Is it deep?” she murmured, not looking at Ron who was now hovering on her other side and holding her hand.

Harry shook his head. “There’s blood, but not that much. You might have a concussion but I don’t think you’ll need stitches.”

She nodded tiredly.

“Just stay awake, Hermione,” he whispered, leaning down and kissing her forehead. 

Hermione could feel Ron’s angry and worried gaze on her, but she ignored him, instead looking up at Harry as he took out his wand and started chanting the spells to keep them hidden. When he was finished, he ordered Ron to start setting up camp and held Hermione, talking to her about Hogwarts, and how jealous he had been when she paid more attention to her books than to him. This had Hermione laughing quietly, which brought a lopsided smile to Harry’s face.

“I always paid attention to you,” she promised. “You’re my best friend.”

He looked uncomfortable and glanced to the side toward Ron. “What about Ron?” he murmured, seeming a bit distracted.

“What about Ginny?” she countered.

He sighed heavily, looking unusually pensive. “Ginny—she—“ He let out a labored breath, as if trying to find the words. “I fancied her,” he finally admitted her, “but when we broke up, I realized that she looks so much like my mum. It—“

“It bothers you?”

He nodded, looking down at her again. “I think what I really wanted was to be closer to the Weasleys. She’s beautiful and feisty, of course, and good at Quidditch, but she’s also fancied me as a love struck child. I think she buys into the whole Chosen One nonsense a bit, even if she doesn’t always act like it, at least anymore. But I think it’s always at the heart of what she’s thinking. I’m the Harry Potter, not just Harry.”

“Just Harry,” Hermione murmured. “I think I like that.”

He smiled down at her and sifted the coat under her head a bit. “How are you feeling?”

She thought for a moment. “Tired,” she admitted, and he nodded. 

“Ron and I will be on duty all night, but you should stay awake for a few more hours until you don’t feel so tired or light headed.”

“Yes, Healer Potter,” she teased, and he blushed. The sight brought a smile to her lips.

“What about Ron?” he asked again, and she looked toward their third friend. He finally had the tent up and was watching them from the entrance, a look of hurt furrowing his brows, the Deluminator in his fingers as he played with it.

“He’s left too often, and I wasn’t going to wait anymore,” she answered truthfully, “and he doesn’t understand what it’s like to have lost, not really. He complains about Ginny following him about during the summer or trying to butt in with us, but I’d give anything…” A sob caught in her throat.

“Elissa,” Harry murmured in realization.

“My little sister. She would be seventeen now, if she hadn’t—”

Harry pulled her closer, careful to keep his coat pressed against her head, and held her and tears streamed down her face. She knew Ron was watching but she just didn’t care. She needed this, needed comfort, needed Harry. That night she fell asleep curled up around him as he kept watch. Harry had bundled her up so she wouldn’t catch cold. He was thoughtful like that, and she stubbornly refused to go into the tent with Ron, only to have him send her accusing gazes or ask her why she had chosen Harry over him. She was too tired for that, her head still aching dully.

When she was a child, she would sometimes crawl into her parents’ bed and they would hold her like this. She felt safe with them, just as she felt safe with Harry. Hermione knew that he didn’t think less of her for being vulnerable. He just held her tighter and kissed her softly. Part of her felt broken, but she knew that Harry would help put her back together again, would quietly and gently support her, and she would yell at him when he was being too moody until he snapped out of it. They worked somehow together. She was surprised she hadn’t really noticed sooner. Ron, she supposed, had distracted her in some ways with their constant bickering.

They didn’t bicker now. Ron barely spoke to her and not at all to Harry. Hermione half expected him to leave again; he’d left, after all, once before, and now he had fewer reasons to stay.

It was Valentine’s Day when Harry surprised her, turning on the radio to a slow song, and dancing with her in the tent as they had all those months ago when Ron had yet to return. She couldn’t help but laugh and smile, letting him twirl her and twirling him. They swung back and forth together and when Harry looked at her, even though she was wearing an old sweater and denims, she felt prettier than she had at the Yule Ball.

The song was just as bittersweet, but it didn’t really matter. She was laughing and carefree, even with Ron’s heavy stare on them.

“Aren’t you debonair?” she laughed after Harry dipped her. “A regular Cary Grant.”

“Did he dance?” Harry asked as they moved back and forth, their eyes never leaving each other, brown and blue-green.

“He must have,” Hermione insisted. “I can’t imagine him not being able to dance. Everyone did back then.”

“Dumbledore danced—at the Yule Ball—“

“As did you. Don’t think I wasn’t sneaking glances to see if you’d manage it.”

Harry threw back his head and laughed. “That was a horrible night.”

“I had rather a lot of fun, until…” She glanced over to where Ron was fiddling with his Deluminator, his eyes now pointedly not looking anywhere near them. When she looked back at Harry, Hermione noticed that his gaze was boring into her.

“If you’d rather—“ he offered a bit self-consciously, and she knew immediately what he was thinking.

“No. No, I want to dance with you. Just you,” she promised, her voice little more than a whisper although she was nearly certain Ron had heard them.

They smiled sadly at each other, and she rested her head on his shoulder, dancing back and forth, finding it endearing that Harry really did have two left feet and couldn’t do more than move from side to side to the music and twirl her. Then again, she couldn’t do much either by herself. She’d needed Viktor to lead her at the Yule Ball and even McGonagall’s lessons could only teach her so much. Really, one lesson to learn how to dance … it was ridiculous. At least McGonagall hadn’t just assumed that they could dance and had given them some form of instruction.

She looked up at Harry and let him kiss her, their bodies barely moving as she opened her mouth to deepen the kiss. Hermione sighed in bliss, wondering how she had ever considered kissing Ron once. The song changed, but they didn’t move, languidly and softly kissing each other. She liked how she didn’t have to crane her neck upward or stand on her toes as she had with Viktor. Instead, she could easily pull Harry closer and feel the strong lines of his legs against hers. 

Their cold noses brushed against each other, making her laugh happily into the kiss. This was better than chocolates and flowers, though perhaps that would come later if the war ever ended… if they were ever not running… if neither of them had entered the magical world. They had both been Muggles once, or thought they had been. Neither of them had known about magic until they were eleven. Ron wouldn’t understand, she realized sadly. Magic wasn’t wondrous to him and he hadn’t had to give up his old life for it.

That night she slept against Harry, burying closer to his flannel shirt for some more warmth. The heating charms they used were minimal. The less magic they cast aside from the wards, the less likely they would be detected.

When she woke up to find that Ron had disappeared in the night, she wasn’t surprised. He’d left before and she’d known he could easily leave again. 

**TBC  
**


End file.
